In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). In 2000, the first year of the program, over 4,000 grants were awarded to minority students who were entering college or continuing their undergraduate or graduate studies during the 2000-2001 academic year. Since then, an additional 1,000 scholarships have been awarded to outstanding freshmen every year. Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.
To be eligible, students had to meet several qualifications. They must (1) be of African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, or Pacific Islander background; (2) be full-time students entering college or university; (3) have a GPA of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale; (4) be eligible for Pell Grants; (5) be leaders in community service, extracurricular, or other activities.
In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. The survey was distributed to Cohort 1 (award year 2000), Cohort 2 (award year 2001), Cohort 3 (award year 2002), Cohort 5 (award year 2004), and Cohort 9 (award year 2008). Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons. This is an ongoing survey with the fifth, and final, follow-up occurring 18 years after high school around the age of 36. The survey included questions that address the topics of (a) social, cultural, linguistic, economic background; (b) race/ethnicity and gender patterns; (c) high school preparation and experiences; (d) the role of financial aid; (e) college choice; (f) major choice; (g) engagement and leadership in college; (h) academic achievement, persistence, and completions; (i) graduate education plans; (j) career choice and transition to the workplace; and (k) democratic values and leadership after college.
For the first year of the program, GMS awarded 4,053 scholarships to freshman, continuing undergraduate students, and graduate students. Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients. Non-cognitive scores are also available for Cohort 1.

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). In 2000, the first year of the program, over 4,000 grants were awarded to minority students who were entering college or continuing their undergraduate or graduate studies during the 2000-2001 academic year. Since then, an additional 1,000 scholarships have been awarded to outstanding freshmen every year. Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.
To be eligible, students had to meet several qualifications. They must (1) be of African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, or Pacific Islander background; (2) be full-time students entering college or university; (3) have a GPA of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale; (4) be eligible for Pell Grants; (5) be leaders in community service, extracurricular, or other activities.
In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. The survey was distributed to Cohort 1 (award year 2000), Cohort 2 (award year 2001), Cohort 3 (award year 2002), Cohort 5 (award year 2004), and Cohort 9 (award year 2008). Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons. This is an ongoing survey with the fifth, and final, follow-up occurring 18 years after high school around the age of 36. The survey included questions that address the topics of (a) social, cultural, linguistic, economic background; (b) race/ethnicity and gender patterns; (c) high school preparation and experiences; (d) the role of financial aid; (e) college choice; (f) major choice; (g) engagement and leadership in college; (h) academic achievement, persistence, and completions; (i) graduate education plans; (j) career choice and transition to the workplace; and (k) democratic values and leadership after college.
For the first year of the program, GMS awarded 4,053 scholarships to freshman, continuing undergraduate students, and graduate students. Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients. Non-cognitive scores are also available for Cohort 1.

Guidelines for Applying for Restricted Data

Before you begin an application you will need the following information to complete the form

General Requirements:

appointment at research institution; appointment must be under the jurisdiction of the receiving institution

degree requirements (possibly doctorate)

Must be submitted:

project description

IRB approval

approved security plan

roster of research and IT staff who can access or view the data or computer where data are hosted.

confidentiality pledges for all people on roster

Some require:

CV's

Public and restricted versions of the data are included in this collection. Due to the sensitive nature of the restricted data, users will need to complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement before they can obtain the restricted version. These forms can be accessed on the download page associated with this dataset.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

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Universe:
Population of American high school students graduating in the year of 2001, continuing undergraduate students, and graduate students who meet the criteria established by the Gates Foundation as stated in the summary.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

Due to the timing of the end of field period and the project end, GMS Cohort 1 Graduate Student 2nd Follow-up survey dataset is limited compared to the other studies in this series in that there was no preliminary data cleaning conducted. More specifically, data from this cohort did not undergo the full coding, data cleaning, and weight estimation process that was standard to other cohorts in the Gates Millennium Scholars studies before depositing to ICPSR.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
The purpose of the GMS Tracking and Longitudinal study is to gather data on the lives of scholars and selected non-recipients in order to analyze the effects on the educational, civic, and personal lives of selected sample members. The Gates Foundation hopes to generate research that will help improve education attainment and achievement of minority students.

Study Design:
This study was conducted using cross-sectional survey files and a longitudinal survey design. In total, there will be seven cohorts, but to date, only five cohorts have begun the survey process. For this study, a cohort is defined as all GMS scholars and a representative sample of non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons. Each cohort will be asked to fill out a baseline survey and five follow-up surveys. As the study is scheduled to end in 2022, only Cohorts 1, 2, 3, and 5 are scheduled to go through all six rounds of data collection. Cohort 9 will continue through the fourth follow-up, Cohort 13 through the third follow-up, and Cohort 17 will end with the second follow-up. The baseline survey occurs after the first year out of high school when they have made the transition to college or the workforce. The first follow-up will correspond to their third year out of high school, which for many will be during their junior year in college. The second follow-up will occur at the end of the applicants' fifth year out of high school, which may mark the transition to graduate or professional school, or into the workforce. At the end of the eighth year out of high school, the third follow-up will occur. For some this will correspond to the transition into the workforce after the completion of graduate or professional school. The fourth follow-up will take place thirteen years out of high school around the age of 31, and the fifth will be eighteen years out of high school, around the age of 36.

Sample:
Cross-sectional data collection contains the responses of all 4,053 scholarship recipients in the first year of Gates Millenium Scholars and additional sampling of 2,744 non-recipients. A stratified sample design was used for non-recipients in order to enable powerful comparisons at the level of racial/ethnic group between freshman and continuing undergraduate students. All Pell-Grant-in-place no-recipients were included in the samples for each racial/ethnic group. The remainder of cases was drawn from the pool of non-recipients without Pell Grants in place. The goal was to obtain 300 completes from each racial/ethnic group except American Indians. Due to their small number, all non-recipients were included in the samples of both populations. The designs are likely to produce a design effect for non-recipients because the samples are not proportional to their representation in the population as a whole. This effect is likely to be offset by the stratification. For additional information, see the sampling section of the Cohort 1 Survey Codebook.

Time Method:
Cross-sectional
,
Longitudinal: Cohort/ Event-based

Weight:
In this study, the entire population of scholars and the entire population of non-recipients were asked to participate in the survey, so weights were only needed to compensate for sub-population differences in non-response to the survey. The response rates for non-recipients are weighted to account for differences in the selection probabilities of the sample members. No such adjustment was necessary for the scholars since all scholars were selected for the survey with certainty. For the cross-sectional datasets (baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up), the weight variable is called "WEIGHT" and the longitudinal datasets the weight variables for baseline are "R1_WGT" (Cohort 1). For more information on weighting procedure, please refer to the weighting section of the documentation.

Mode of Data Collection:
web-based survey

Data Source:

National Opinion Research Center (NORC) collected data to be delivered and produced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2002-2008.

Description of Variables:
See Variables Section corresponding to Cohort 1 Year Codebook. The survey included questions that address the topics of (a) social, cultural, linguistic, economic background; (b) race/ethnicity and gender patterns; (c) high school preparation and experiences; (d) the role of financial aid; (e) college choice; (f) major choice; (g) engagement and leadership in college; (h) academic achievement, persistence, and completions; (i) graduate education plans; (j) career choice and transition to the workplace; and (k) democratic values and leadership after college.

Response Rates:
By weighting the responses with respect to their relative response rates, the population estimates accurately reflect the proportion of the groups in the population. Percent responses and non-responses are shown with the counts of respondents and non-respondents in each category of background variable. Gender and Race/ethnicity were variables taken into account for response rates.